Let’s see… where did I leave off… oh, yeah! So last week I finished up w/ some pain and needing to make up some miles. I missed last Monday and was making up the miles plus getting in my long run on Saturday. I hired the neighbor girl to come over and babysit while I hit the road. It was a perfect evening for running all except my legs were tired from the whole weeks worth of hard work! Little did I know – I should have been icing all my smaller aches and pains away… before they became bigger!

So Sunday seemed normal – sore but I have come to expect this from the amount of new levels I am pushing myself towards. Monday I was noticing much more discomfort and decided not to run but to just do Yoga that morning and if I felt up to it I would run in the evening. Well, about 20 min into Yoga – I’m in the runner’s pose (how ironic) and go to drop my back leg down to my knee and this incredibly sharp pain shoots straight down my quad and I fell over straightening my leg in an attempt to damper the pain. It felt like it might cramp. So I start trying to stretch out both legs for the remainder of the hour. But it just got worse. By that night I could barely bend it. I let Jeanne know about my issue that night and she advised me to ice it all night long – but I was very unprepared for an injury and didn’t have anything I could leave on all night. But I started icing my legs after I got Nola to bed and kept it up until I finally crashed out at 10pm. Tuesday morning when I woke up my quad right next to my knee cap (where I didn’t have ice) was super swollen and squishy – and very bulbous. I took a picture of it and emailed it to Jeanne… she recommended I go see a doc. Wanna see?!

I got in to see someone at the Naval Hospital later that afternoon but I was extremely disappointed when he didn’t seem to listen to what I was telling him. I mentioned that it was my quads only, and that I was doing yoga when I had the most pain, that stretching seemed to make it worse. He immediately had me stand and cross my legs and do some sort of hip flexor stretch. Then he had me lie on the table and get on one side while he pressed around on the side of my thigh and talked about the IT Band. I mentioned again that it was specifically the front of my leg only that was hurting and swollen. He pressed around on my knee and quad and I yelled ouch! So then he told me this was extremely common in runners and that it was just from over use. He got me some print outs about how to stretch the IT Band and told me to keep doing Yoga b/c it would help. I stopped listening to him about 20 min prior to this when I realized he wasn’t listening to me. I took his handouts and thanked him for his time. He told me not to run for a week.

So here I am back on my couch w/ my legs propped up and iced. Following the R.I.C.E method from here on out. They are already feeling soooo much better than this morning. Jeanne wants me to take it easy for the rest of the week – which means no running – but I have a 5K I was extremely excited about. I even hired the neighbor girl to go with me so she could watch Nola while I ran and hopefully snap a few finish line photos of me for the blog! This is my 5th week of training and I was so anxious to see what my time would be for the 5K after all my training. I’m still feeling hopeful that I’ll be able to run it – I will listen to my body and to my trainer though! But… you get a BIB and a T-shirt – inset BIG pouty face! (most of the bases around here host free 5K’s and you don’t get anything but the fun of running w/ other runners)

All in all I haven’t let this stop me from being very excited about all the progress I have made. I talked to Jeanne this evening to let her know how anti-climactic my visit to the clinic was and we agreed to still meet our two times this week. She assured me we will just work on strength training and I assured her I was not ready to loose any momentum!

I have been combing RW website for all sort of info on how to help myself out. They have an Injury Prevention section on the website that has a few videos about Foam Rollers. I went shopping on both bases looking for a foam roller on the first day of my pain but of course – as the sales attendant explained, “right now, b/c of all the people who started working out, b/c of New Years Resolutions – we are sold out of lots of stuff like that.” Great! So I came home and ordered one from Amazon and I am sure it will make it’s way through the FPO black hole in two months or so. Also on order are multiple sizes of ice packs and gels and a good old fashion English Ice Bag!

From what I was reading in my RW books last night – Ice in a bag is much more effective than the gels or packs. The reasoning is – think of your hands holding a hot mug of coco. Eventually your hands become just as hot as the mug and then slowly your mug cools as your hands absorb all the heat. Our bodies naturally try to balance out hot and cold in the effort to balance temperatures. So – the ice stays WAY colder for WAY longer than the gel. Make sense?

So TWO things…

#1 – I happen to have 3 extra copies of RW Complete Book of Women’s Running and would love to give these away to anyone who is interested in them! Please just message me or email me (sarah.pevehouse2@gmail.com) and I will send them out to 3 lucky women right away!

#2 – I do have some exciting news! Every once in a while I get this wild hair up my butt and think – I need a change! Especially when I have been conquering new territory or just opening up a new chapter…and lately I feel like I have been doing a little bit of both… so my change?! A new hair cut! (I’m so sorry honey – my husband loves long hair)

I love love love short hair on women and especially when that woman is me! So here is my new hair cut (picture taken from my laptop camera while I lay on the couch and type my blog!). I am really super excited about this – it will make getting ready for a run in the morning super easy – well except for my crazy cowlick right on my forehead but hey – the bed head look as been in since Winona Ryder cut her hair short, right? Either way – Jeanne, I hope you recognize me in the gym!

Monday’s Weigh In = 133 lbs (minus 1lb)

Nutrition Updates = I have been trying to do better w/ getting more protein into my diet especially in the AM before running or meeting Jeanne. This is going well and I have to say – now that I am adding some cut up turkey bacon and cheese to my scrambled eggwhites – YUM! I am diggin’ it!

Miles-ran-to-date = 53.41

Final Thoughts – Honestly, I am very glad that this lesson is coming now and not after I have grown to double digit miles. I am happy to be able to learn from these minor setbacks in the hopes that it will prevent me from bigger injuries or setbacks. I know that all runners get injured and that at some point I will probably have a worse injury – but for now, I am learning from this one and counting my blessings!

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